Don’t go looking for the Dog Whisperer in S.A. tonight

Cesar “The Dog Whisperer” Millan looks at a drawing of himself at a news conference in San Antonio in 2009. Millan appeared during the River City Cluster of Dog Shows. (Staff photo)

From the I REALLY Hate It When That Happens Dept.:

Cesar Millan, aka The Dog Whisperer, was supposed to be at the Lila Cockrell Theatre tonight to demonstrate his dog-training theories with a pack o’ poochies, including his new lead dog, a pit bull named Junior. That appearance has been rescheduled for July 18.

Unfortunately, that switch happened after the Friday mySA section went to press last week. Which means we had a giant photo of a smiling Millan and a cute little doggie leading our Tip Sheet section on Page 10 touting an event that wasn’t happening.

No explanation was given for the switch. I learned of it not from the event planners but from a co-worker who said she was getting calls from ticket-buyers about the date being wrong. Since the promoters or the city (which books the theater) never let us know the event was happening in the first place, not getting a head’s-up about the date change is no surprise.

Hate, hate, hate it when that happens.

Part of the problem is production. The Section Formerly Known as Weekender appears in print on Friday, but we actually wrap it up Wednesday night, and it goes to press early, early Thursday morning. Which means stuff can happen in the interim.

But not hearing a peep from the promoter didn’t help, either. Usually, when someone as well-known as Cesar Millan is coming to town, it’s preceded by a phone call or news release saying, “Hey, guess what? We’re bringing Cesar Millan to town.” That’s usually followed by “Would you like to talk to him?”

Instead I found out about its existence by accident when I was looking for something else on the Alamodome’s website, which also lists Lila Cockrell Theatre events.

Our sister publication, Conexion, wound up in the same boat. They published a brief Q&A with Millan in their May 23 edition — which also listed the show date as May 29, not July 18. And I’m pretty sure that that Q&A happened with Millan via email last Monday, just days before the original date. So apparently even Cesar didn’t know at that point that his gig was going to be rescheduled.

And a check of Millan’s Facebook page includes this May 16 post: “Calling all Pack Leaders in San Antonio, Texas! Cesar and Junior are on their way to see you at the Lila Cockrell Theater on May 29!” But the link for tour dates lists shows in Dallas and Houston on Thursday and Friday, but not S.A.

Strange. But as it turns out, the San Antonio event has its own Facebook page, which featured this post last Thursday: “Attention Cesar Millan fans. Due to a filming conflict, ‘An Evening With Cesar Millan in San Antonio’ has been re-scheduled to July 18th.”

It doesn’t say what kind of filming conflict. You’d think those sort of production schedules are done weeks, if not months, in advance. Yet the schedule change happened only a week after he was inviting pack leaders to come see him.

Anyway, someone somewhere dropped the ball. Or maybe that should be, someone dropped the chew toy.